3D Rendering of stainless steel texture

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by MuseumofSmallThings, Oct 7, 2012.

  1. Hi everyone,
    Its been ages since i have visited or posted in the forums, i really should spend more time in here.
    As a Lightwave 3D generalist i am always eager to explore realistic looking surfacing of the models i make.
    The stainless steel material from shapways is quite a complex texture to recreate in a 3D program and i had never really bothered to try until the other day.
    The images below are my effort to recreate this texture. Its not perfect but its as far as i am bothered to take it. Enjoy.

    [​IMG]

     
  2. [​IMG]
     
  3. Bathsheba
    Bathsheba Well-Known Member
    Nice!! If you're taking questions, in the second one I'm curious whether you put the untextured areas on the nose and other high points by hand, or does your texturing setup do them automagically somehow?
     
  4. Hey Bathsheba,
    both textures are identical with the only difference being the hdri image used in the global illumination.
    In answer to your question though, yes i did put this on by hand. I am using occlusion to keep the texture rough in the tight spots. As you might well know this only works for the nooks and tight spots in the geometry so another solution was needed for the extremities where the polishing process would have worn down and made the texture smoother. Lightwave has many nodes that might be well purposed for this surfacing task but i was not bothered to explore any possible procedural (automagically) solution although it would be preferable. Instead i just manually made a quick and dirty vertex map and mixed that with the occlusion shading to achieve the desired textural smoothing where it was needed. Feel free to ask me questions if you have them.

    regards Leigh
     
    Last edited: Oct 8, 2012
  5. Youknowwho4eva
    Youknowwho4eva Well-Known Member
    Only thing I would do different is some how make it look like layers as in stainless you can usually see the build lines.
     
  6. Hey Youknowwho4eva,
    Yes i agree about the stepping. I originally intended to include stepping lines and just plain forgot. If i get time i will revise this and re-post.
    Leigh